


Weekend at Laramie's

by BarracudaHeart, CoreyWW



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Alcohol, Ambiguous Relationships, Black Comedy, Crime Comedy, Dramedy, Explicit Language, Flashbacks, Gen, Hangover, Past Child Abuse, Sad, Wakes & Funerals
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:04:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarracudaHeart/pseuds/BarracudaHeart, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoreyWW/pseuds/CoreyWW
Summary: Ronaldo learned two things in the wake of the disaster that was his mother's funeral: 1. Don't let relatives walk all over you. And 2. Never EVER go drinking with your childhood friend the night before.





	1. Put the Fun in Funeral

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Child Abuse

“Could I get my order without the Old Bay on it? I kind of like my fries not tasting like what my crayfish dinners do,” Sadie gave a good hearted chuckle to Ronaldo, watching him dump out a fresh batch from the fryers.

“Fine,” Ronaldo snickered, “Do you at least want some Wasabi mayo with them?”

“Your dad finally relented?”, the girl raised her eyebrow with a pleasant look.

“No, but if I convince enough of the town that it's a splendid condiment, eventually he'll have to serve it. Either that or the Sriracha blend”, he snorted putting the hot fries in a bag, “Did Lars pawn off work on some poor sucker today?”

“Nah it was actually the opposite,” Sadie laughed, “I forgot I had to do jury duty, so I kind of had to be super nice and tell him at 5 in the morning that I wasn't gonna be there. The courts _finally_ got out an hour ago and I was freaking starving the whole time. Count on you to give me free fries!”

“Hey anytime”, Ronaldo turned off the fryers just as the telephone in the kitchen rang, “I better get that,  brb!”, he announced, pronouncing the abbreviation out loud as ‘birb’.

Sadie snickered then immediately remembered,  “Oh! By the way! There's a horror movie marathon in Shell Junction this weekend if you're interested!” she called out as Ronaldo left the window.

Ronaldo came back a few minutes later, still calm and casual, “Hey sorry about that, my aunt called. My mom just died,” he informed nonchalantly.

Sadie's mouth dropped, and she put the fry she was about to eat back in the bag, going pale, “Oh my god…”

“What was that about a movie marathon?”, he asked, apparently unaffected by the news.

“Ronaldo, I'm so sorry,” Sadie spoke sympathetically, though confused that Ronaldo wasn't the least bit upset.

“Don't even worry about it,” he waved off, “My mother was an abusive evil woman and I'm better off with her no longer in my life whatsoever,” he declared casually, “My aunt's gonna call my dad, and plan a funeral. Probably for next Saturday if you wanna come and hoard mini quiches.”

“U-um…”, Sadie was still confused, “Ok I guess...well uh...there was a horror movie marathon on Wednesday if you wanted to go-”

“Count me in,” Ronaldo beamed with enthusiasm, “Alright well I gotta go tell Peedee the good news, see ya!”, he flipped the shop sign from ‘open’ to ‘closed’ and slammed the metal window shut.

Sadie stood there with her bag of half eaten fries, still stunned and confused about what just happened.

Lars swung the ring of keys around his finger as he strolled down the boardwalk, having finished closing up the shop by himself, albeit as half-assed as one could expect from him, and noticed Sadie standing outside the fry shop, and walked over,  “Yo, you finally got out of jail?”

“It was _jury duty_ ”, she emphasized with a groan,”Yeah. I just needed a snack,” she pointed at the fry bag.

“Ew,” Lars looked at the fries, then the fry shop, “Why’d they close up so fast?”

“Uh…” Sadie paused then sighed, “I guess Ron's mom just died.”

“Really??” Lars looked pretty surprised, then burst into a grin, “Finally!!”

“Lars!!”, Sadie glared, shocked at his reaction, “That's a horrible thing to say! It's different if Ron says it but-”

“Sadie that ‘don't speak ill of the dead’ bullcrap doesn't work with me. That woman was _awful_!”

Sadie sighed, “Look, I don't even know what went down between Ronaldo and his mom. I never even met her.”

Lars rolled his shoulders, “Long story, short version she treated Ron and his little brother like shit, like ‘I hate my own kids and if they do anything I don't like I hurt them’ shit. And she would get into so many fights with his dad that he and his little brother would stay at my house overnight a lot. Oh yeah not to mention she'd yell racist shit at me whenever I came over and she decided she didn't want guests,” he shrugged, “Or at least, guests that don't look like me.”

“Oh gosh,” Sadie blinked, “That’s terrible.”

“Yup,” Lars answered, nonchalant, “So you want to go see the coffee cup kingdom I made for the giant spider living in the stockroom that's been eating all the rats? I named him Esteban.”

“...’Esteban’ is gonna be responsible for whatever health code we get from him being there.”

“Oh please, when they see the drawbridge I made, they'll have to at least give an A for effort.”

It was an absolute wonder how Lars hadn't gotten fired by now.

* * *

Mr. Fryman sat at the kitchen table and began, “Alright boys, I know this situation is a little difficult but-”

“Couldn't be happier.”

“Christmas came early this year.”

Staring at both his sons’ uninterested faces, he drew in a sigh, “Right, well look, I'm on the same page as you two and all, but your aunt is a little more emotional about this and-”

“Aunt Vivian smells like baby wipes.”

“She treats me like a five year old.”

Mr. Fryman rubbed his forehead, “Look if we don't do something for the funeral she's going to never let go of it.”

“Oh no,” Ronaldo answered boredly.

“Whatever shall we do,” Peedee added, not able to care any less than he did right then and there.

Their father groaned, “Look, she wants one of you to give a eulogy ok?”

“Nope.”

“Rain check.”

Fryman frowned, “Look, your aunt is a very wealthy woman and she could really do a number on the business using that over our heads. So one of you will have to bite the bullet and say _something_. You can just say something basic then get off the mic, heck you can make something up! So who can I trust to do this?”

Ronaldo shook his head,  “Not me.”

“Peedee?”, his dad looked over.

“Damn it,” Peedee glared at his brother,  “Fine.”

“Ok great. Just have something ready for Saturday, and this will all go just fine.”

Peedee had the edge of the table in a vicegrip. There were many things to say about the woman who ingrained him with early trauma in the developmental years. And none of them were things he could say in words without going against his father's wishes.

* * *

 “Ok so I've got a potential playlist of music for the funeral, from opening to closing. And I think these are all pretty fitting,” Lars announced, sliding a list over to Mr. Fryman as he sat with Ronaldo at the coffee table, “It's been approved by both Ron _and_ Peedee.”

“I don't know why I allowed you to help us,” Mr. Fryman groaned, taking a look at the list.

_Highway to Hell_

_Celebration_

_Ding Dong the Witch is Dead_

_Ring of Fire_

_Ode to Joy_

_Light my Fire_

_Another One Bites the Dust_

_Hellfire_

Mr. Fryman handed the list back to Lars, “Do me a favor and stop helping.”

“Ronaldo, can we talk?”, Peedee poked his older brother's shoulder.

“Yeah what's up?”

“I can't do the eulogy. I'm trying to practice saying this dumb consolation stuff and I just can't. I'm not a good liar, and I feel sick having to say all this stuff about her that isn't even true.”

Before Ronaldo could answer, Peedee then asked, “Could you please do the eulogy instead?”

“I-”

“Look it's like dad said, you don't even have to mean what you say, but you know I'm a terrible liar and if I go up there I'll just go into a rant about how awful she was. Can you please do it? You're the actor of the family.”

“Peedee-”

The younger looked at him expectantly.

“...alright. I'll do it.”

“Yes!!”, Peedee hugged his brother's arm, “You're the best, Ron!”, and ran out of the room, leaving Ronaldo to stew in his thoughts, the arguing of Lars and his dad being background noise to the growing discomfort in his gut.

* * *

The sun was starting to go down when Ronaldo went to his room and started. He opened up his laptop.

 _Come on, Ron, this won’t be that hard,_ he told himself. _Just lie, it’s not gonna be that hard._

He opened up a new document and started writing:

_I am deeply saddened by the loss of my mother._

As soon as he put a period on it, he burst out laughing. He grinned.

“Oh wow, okay,” he said trying to stifle his laughter at such an outright lie. “Maybe this’ll be kinda fun.”

He continued:

_What can I say about my mother? She was a--_

Then Ronaldo’s smile fell.

 _A .... good .... person,_ he typed. Slowly. _A ... kind per--_

He deleted the entire line. He was wrong. This wasn’t fun at all. He felt sick just imagining _saying_ that in front of everyone and pretending it was the truth, that his mom was someone he missed even a little.

He took a breath. Keep it together, he told himself.

He started writing again.

 _My mother left an impact on everyone she met,_ he wrote.

He imagined her face, scowling at him, and before he stopped himself he wrote:

_A long-lasting impact not unlike an aggressive cancer, the T-Virus, or the Bubonic plague. Or--_

Ronaldo clenched his fists.

“You’re not doing this for her,” he muttered to himself. “You’re doing this for Peedee. Come on ...”

He stared at the document, having no idea what he could actually write.

Sighing with defeat, he opened up his web browser and did a Gaggle search for “how to write a eulogy like a normal person.”

Astoundingly, the first result was a eulogy tips page from “HowToFakeBeingNormal.edu” which also had links in the sidebar to articles like “How to Have a Conversation Without Looking Awkward and Afraid” and “How to Meet New People And Not Psyche Yourself Out By Assuming They All Hate You.”

Ronaldo stared at the page for a moment and bookmarked it for future use before reading the eulogy article.

“If you actually can’t think of good qualities to write about, just pick one specific good memory, and just make that the entire subject of the eulogy.”

Taking a deep breath, Ronaldo sighed. Ok, time to think deep.

Real deep.

“Ok, lets see...holidays...”

* * *

_She had yanked the impossibly tiny bag of halloween candy her three year old son managed to accrue that evening, and crumpled it in her hands._

_“No mama no!”, he cried, only to be nearly pulled off the ground by his wrist._

_“Do you want to be a fat little piggy?”, she snarled at him, chucking the treats in the garbage, “I told you no candy!”_

_“But it’s Hallo-”_

_“I don’t care!”, she shouted in his face before putting on a fake saccharine smile to answer the door for the other trick or treaters._

* * *

_Ronnie squealed in pain and tears rolled down his face as his mother jammed a handful of dry pine needles directly onto his palms, the points digging into his skin, and he cried for her to stop._

_He hadn’t meant to break one of the pretty ornaments on the tree, he just wanted to feel them._

_“You’ll be lucky if Santa Claus brings you anything,” she glowered at him, unmoved by his tears._

_He spent his fourth Christmas with welts all over his hands._

* * *

_“_ Bedtime routines…”

* * *

_“Stop that crying!!”, she screamed in his face, slamming the headboard of his bed with her palm as he tried in vain to quiet himself after she had thrown him back on the bed after he came to her with a horrific nightmare._

_“But the ghosts were-”, he blubbered._

_“Ghosts aren’t real!!”, she yelled, “This is the real world! Get used to it! Stop being such a little mistake!”_

_And starting at five years old, Ronnie did his best not to bother his mommy at night ever again. He just kept his nightmares to himself._

* * *

Ronaldo sighed, chewing on a knuckle.

“...Playdates with friends…”

* * *

_“What the HELL are you doing?”, Mrs. Fryman snapped as she stopped in the middle of the living room, interrupting her search for her husband to glare at her eldest son and his friend._

_Ronnie looked down shyly at his lap as he kept the rest of his body rigid._

_“Watchin’ tv,” he mumbled, thinking he would get in trouble for having turned it on himself or watching the videotapes she always complained about being too noisy._

_“Not that,” she snarled, glaring distastefully at where his hand was placed, right in Laramie’s tinier one._

_Ronnie looked at their hands, then back up at her with confusion, “What?”_

_In a split second she stamped over and yanked his arm up, and scolded, “Don't you dare do that with him . Don't you know that's disgusting??”_

_“But we hold hands at school-” he whimpered, not understanding._

_“Oh not anymore you're not. If I see you touching his hand or ANYthing of his anymore you're in big trouble mister.”_

_Before Ronnie could say anything, she stormed out of the room to go find her husband and tell him she was home from work. She muttered under her breath words that the little boy could hardly hear over the tv. “I mean it's bad enough you're both boys.”_

_Ronnie looked over to Laramie, and gave a small shrug, “Guess our hands are germy?”_

_The smaller boy didn't respond to the question, just looking timidly at his hands._

_“I don't feel good,” he whimpered a few minutes later._

_When Laramie’s parents came to pick him up, Mrs. Fryman butt into the awkward conversation between them and her husband to give them a word or two about their boy._

_“I don't want him touching my kid you got it? If you let him hold hands like that people are gonna think he's a fairy-”_

_Ronnie gasped. He loved fairies! Having a magical best friend was the best thing to hope for!_

_“We're not concerned about that,” Mrs. Barriga spoke, “Kids hold hands all the time, you know?”_

_“Well not mine. Especially not with yours.”_

_“Why?”_

_“Look you're probably good people but you should have stuck with your OWN people-”_

_“Excuse me?!” Mr. Barriga stepped forward, “Do you want to explain this?”_

_What resulted was a terrible ordeal in which both Laramie and Ronnie locked themselves in the bathroom, the former absolutely bawling as he heard Ronnie's mother say the most horrible things to his parents. His own father sounded angrier than he ever had in his entire life, defending himself and his son from the hateful words that he had heard a handful of times throughout his life, and inevitably so would his son._

_Ronnie, in the safety of the bathroom, hugged the boy out of comfort, not understanding why them being so different was so bad to his mother._

_It took hours of coaxing by Laramie’s parents and his own father to get them to open the door,  and only with the promise that they could still be friends and play together._

_So long as they never were in the sight of Mrs. Fryman again._

* * *

Ronaldo stared at the blank document for a solid three minutes before slamming his laptop shut.

 _I can't do this_ , he thought to himself as he rubbed his forehead.

There was no winning.

Write a eulogy and feel physically ill saying it in front of the crowd.

Don't write one and his aunt screws them over through various means.

He picked up the phone, saying to hell with foresight or hindsight on this.

Lars miraculously heard his phone ring over the loud metal screamo music gracing his ears as he lounged in his room.

“Yeah?”

“I need a fucking drink.”

* * *

When Ronaldo woke up, it was still dark out, his vision was fuzzy, and he instinctively reached for his glasses on the nightstand only to realize his hands were touching carpet. Sitting up, he looked around and realized he wasn't even in his room.

Or even his house.

“Hello?” he called out, and he winced as the headache he'd received caught up with him. His mouth tasted like vomit and he just then realized his glasses were still on his face.

Lars was nowhere to be found.

Amidst the empty bottles of alcohol they'd shared, and the faint smell of chocolate,  Ronaldo caught sight of the impressive coffin shaped coffee table.

Wait.

“How did my mother get here?”


	2. The Wake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We apologize for such the wait on this chapter. The truth is we had most of this written months ago, and didn't know where to place the ending as well as some other plot points, so we've opted to make this a three part story and will write the third and final chapter when we can. Anywhoo enjoy! - BarracudaHeart

“Ok, Ronaldo, there’s probably a logical explanation for this. You’re in a strange house, disheveled, and your mother’s coffin is in here too….most feasible theory; parasites attacked your brain, and caused you to commit body snatching…”

 

Saying it out loud to himself didn’t really seem to make him freak out any less, it just made himself sound even more ridiculous.

 

He rubbed his head, still tasting yesterday’s dinner on his mouth,

 

How much did he have to drink last night? _What_ did he have?  

 

“Hello? Lars?”, he called out, wondering if the other was even still around. Walking over to the coffin, he lifted the lid out of curiosity.

 

Lars lay in the coffin, and winced at the sudden intrusion of light, groaning, “Ng, five more minutes-”

 

“Lars?! What the hell are you doing in my mother’s coffin?!”

 

“I wanted to see what it was like…”

 

“What??”

 

“Y’know. Death.  Steven brought me back from it way too fast for me to even experience much from it in space. I didn’t get to go through the whole mourning and burial spiel….Y’know, it’s not as comfy as you’d think. This thing is killer on my back and I think my feet are-”

 

“Get out of there!”, Ronaldo yelled, and crossed his arms as the other immediately scrambled out, “...Where is my mother’s body???”

 

“...I dunno,” Lars shrugged, and a wash of horrified realization came over his face as he began to inexplicably pat himself down, “Uhhh-”

 

“What? What’s wrong?”

 

“...Absolutely nothing,” Lars spoke through his teeth, and suddenly got on his hands and knees, crawling around, looking under furniture, “Just looking for...my phone,” he spoke, voice distant, “Let me know if you uh...see any bugs around this place, ok?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll be sure to,” Ronaldo spoke sarcastically, looking around, “Where even is this anyway. This isn’t your house, at least i don’t think it is-”

 

“Dunno,” Lars shrugged, “Hey where’s your bro? He was with us-”

 

“Wait Peedee was with us??”

 

“Yeah don’t you remember?”, Lars asked, while still elbowing around the floor, searching intently for something.

 

“Lars, I didn’t think we’d bring a child with us to go get alcohol. Unless he snuck along in the trunk and-”

 

An earsplitting scream from another room cut him off, and both boys ran into the next room.

 

In a pile of discarded chocolate wrappers, a clearly disheveled Peedee was trying in vain to scramble away from the creature on the floor, “SPIDER!!!”

 

“Esteban!”, Lars cheered gaily, and scooped up the tarantula, holding him in his hand casually, then looked at Ronaldo’s clearly unamused face, “...What?”

 

Peedee was twitching and in questionable state, chocolate smeared on his face, “Y-You both get away from my chocolate! It’s mine you hear me?! Mine!!”

 

“Peedee, calm down, nobody is taking the chocolate, where are we?”, Ronaldo frowned, “This isn’t our house...or Lars’...”

 

“I thought this was Lars’ house! You said it was on the drive here!” Peedee hissed, pointing an accusatory finger at them both while he cradled a bar of chocolate protectively.

 

Ronaldo looked over at Lars, who was preoccupied with Esteban, and waited for an answer.

 

Lars blinked, then spoke in a failed attempt to be sober, “Oh yeah, this _is_ my house. Sorry, whenever I think of _my_ house, I think of my projected future living arrangements, and not my parent’s place.”

 

The two brothers stared at him like he was the biggest idiot in the world.

 

“Lars, you have _no_ right to call me weird anymore,” Ronaldo spoke with almost a slight tone of disbelief, then looked at Peedee, “Uh, ok so don’t panic, but mom’s coffin is in the living room...with no body. Do you know where it is?”

 

Peedee didn’t answer, too busy nibbling on chocolate and staring hatefully at Esteban.

 

Lars put the spider down on the counter, and approached the boy, moving to take the candy, “Ok, howabout we put the chocolate down a sec and-hey don’t- ah- biting. Don’t bite. Ron, he’s biting me please intervene-”

 

After getting Peedee to surrender the chocolate, and allowing him to clean his face and recompose himself, they got him to talk.

 

“Oh yeah, I got rid of it-”

 

“WHAT?!”

 

“And you wouldn’t believe what I had to do for it. 4H gets RUDE about you calling them late at night, and apparently they’re total tight ends about corpses getting volunteered as compost. “

 

“PEEDEE?!”

 

“Yeah, they didn’t take her after all. Even though I told them it didn’t matter because she was a horrible person who deserved to be worm food-”

 

“PEEDEE YOU CAN’T COMPOST A BODY LIKE THAT-”

 

“I didn’t! I ended up dumping her body at the donut shop you work at,” he pointed to Lars.

 

“In the dumpster?”

 

“Naw, in the break room!”

 

Lars screamed, “SADIE’S SHIFT STARTS IN THIRTY MINUTES SHE’S GONNA LOSE IT IF SHE SEES A BODY IN THERE-”

 

“MOM’S FUNERAL IS IN FIVE HOURS!”, Ronaldo screamed, “EVERYONE IS GONNA LOSE IT IF THEY LEARN WHAT HAPPENED.”

 

“Ok game plan! We get the body back, in the coffin, and we drive it back to the funeral home without anyone noticing!”, Lars formulated.

 

“Well they’re sure gonna notice the hole in the wall you guys made when you burst your car through the place grabbing the coffin,” Peedee muttered.

 

“...Fuck,” both older boys swore, and they had to formulate a new plan while running to the Big Donut to fetch the body.

 

“Sneaking into the funeral home is gonna be hard, especially if we want to get there before they notice the body is missing,” Ronaldo surmised as they ran, “We’re gonna need the help of someone with a history of breaking in, and possibly a master criminal,”

 

“Got it,” Lars gave a thumbs up, “I know one.”

 

Martha had slept through all of the chaos happening downstairs in her abode. Her cell phone rang and she picked up seeing it was her son, “Laramie, it’s 5:30 in the morning…”

 

“Hey ma, big favor to ask.”

 

“Oh of course, sweetie, what is it?”

 

“Ok, so Ron and I were on a huge bender last night, we kind of wound up with his mom’s coffin in the living room, and her body at my workplace and we sort of need to get them back to the funeral home without getting caught and arrested for bodysnatching...can you give us a hand?”

 

“...Son, I’m going to need you to repeat everything you said after ‘huge bender’.”

* * *

 

The nice thing was that the back door of the Big Donut had a simple lock that could be opened with a key; a key that every employee kept on them.

 

Too bad Lars was a wasted moron whose next best plan for opening up shop was joining forces with Ronaldo and kicking the door off its pathetic hinges.

 

And it was also too bad that the door actually wasn't locked to begin with, since Peedee had picked that lock when dumping the corpse.

 

It didn't actually take too long to find the body, especially since the younger Fryman brother had left his deceased mother sitting upright in a break room chair, a discarded bucket for bathroom cleaning placed over her head, and obscene images drawn on her face in marker.

 

“Oh god,” Ronaldo groaned, realizing this was a whole other problem he'd have to fix before the clergy and bereaved came into the funeral home, “We’ve gotta clean her up before we put her back in the coffin.”

 

“No problem, broski,” Lars gave a drowsy thumbs up, “I am...totally down for that,” he resisted the urge to draw another pair of breasts on her face, and was about to help Ronaldo take the corpse outside when he heard the front door unlock, and even in his non-sober state he went rigid in fear.

 

“Lars, you're here?”, Sadie called out as she walked through the front of the store.

 

“Shitshitshit!!”, Lars hissed, shoving Ronaldo frantically, “Grab the body and run,” then immediately yelled, “No I'm not!!”

 

Ronaldo slapped his forehead. And people thought _he_ was the dumb kid around here?

 

“Lars, you don't have a shift today,” Sadie's voice got closer as she headed towards the door leading to the back.

 

“FUCk,” he coughed, and ran to greet her just as she made it to the counter, “Uhhh I know!”, he spoke, sounding very out of it, “I just uh…”

 

Sadie gave a concerned look, “Uh, you ok? You look kind of like you're having a hangover.”

 

“Hangover? Me? Nah never,” he waved it off, blinking heavily, wincing as he heard a crash in the back room.

 

“What was that?” Sadie craned her head around him to look.

 

“Esteban,” Lars cut in, sidestepping to block her view.

 

Ronaldo cursed as his failed attempt to drag his mother's body out had knocked over cleaning supplies.

 

Giving a suspicious look, Sadie put her hands in her coat pockets, “So why _are_ you here? You were gonna go to Ronaldo's mom's service weren't you?”

 

“Aw oh nah,” he waved his hand, words slurring, “People are always dyin’ y'know. See one you see em all.”

 

“...”

 

“So where else would I rather be than here, with my good ol pal Sandy- I mean Sadie,” he waved off, feeling slight relief as he heard the door of the break room close.

 

“...Lars I can tell from half a mile away that you are _really_ smashed, but for your gut instinct to have you come to work and help me...well...aw gosh,” Sadie blushed, looking up at him with a grateful smile.

 

Lars focused on watching through the window of the storefront; Ronaldo dragging a body and throwing it over his head into the trunk of his mother's car that just screeched in front of the store, silhouetted by the newborn sunrise, as Sadie spoke with genuine heart, unaware of what was behind her, “Lars, that's _so sweet_.”

 

“Huh? O-Oh yeah, sure Sade.”

 

She reached for his hand and pat it, “Why don't you head on home? You probably got a nasty hangover to deal with.”

 

“Oh, yeah, but no thanks,” Lars waved off, “I gotta return a body I stole from the funeral home while on a drunk rampage with Ronaldo. Have a good day at work!”, he called as he left out the front door without thought and went into his mother's car, and it sped away.

 

“Ok, whatever it is you need to do,” Sadie laughed, wishing him the best as she settled behind the counter with a content grin, watching the sunrise.

 

“...wait, what was that about stealing a body?”, she frowned.

* * *

 

During the drive to the shop, after being given the rundown of what was going on,  Martha had taken the time to be hospitable and ask little Peedee Fryman how he was doing in school as he sat in the passenger seat.

 

He told her to floor it, and then asked for dirt on Lars.

 

“On the off chance he gets any closer in relationship status to my brother beyond begrudging friendship, I need blackmail material,” he stated plainly.

 

“...I see,” she nodded with a short optimistic chirp. Well she had plenty of stories about Lars’ affination for nudity at a young age, it would take a while to figure out which were the most worthy of telling!

 

Once Ronaldo had dumped the body in the trunk, he climbed into the back, followed shortly after by Lars who dove in with such force he almost smacked the window next to the other boy.

 

Martha gave a peppy, “Ok! Let's roll!”, and sped on the gas and shred gravel down the road.

 

All three boys in the car were basically the living dead, Peedee staring out the window, glowering at his own faint reflection in the glass as he stewed over his thoughts, Ronaldo staring at his lap as he tried to come up with some form of a eulogy for the service, and Lars staring at Ronaldo's head like it was a giant cheeseburger as he was starting to phase into half-sleep and half-stoned mode.

 

“So...did you boys have fun last night?”, Martha decided to ask, not entirely sure what led up to the grave robbery.

 

“...We...don't know…”, Ronaldo admitted, “Things are still fairly blurry for both of us.”

 

“Hopefully if you boys...did anything, you were careful,” Martha chose her words tactfully.

 

“Oh um, well-”, Ronaldo began, starting to feel sweaty, sensing she was referring to them having some sort of relationship beyond whatever the hell this was , “We're not like that…”

 

“Yet,” Lars piped up, voice monotone.

 

Peedee turned and gave the other a dirty look, “Ever.”

 

Martha just smiled tightly and drove even faster.

 

About three miles in she pondered if she had locked the trunk. It had a tendency to pop open.

 

“Hey uh, Mrs. B?”, Peedee piped up,” We...locked the wheels on that casket right?”

 

“There were wheels on the casket?”, Ronaldo poked his head up.

 

Everyone turned their head around in time to see the trunk fly open and the casket launch out at a sufficiently high speed, rocketing down the highway behind them.

 

“Oh shit,” Ronaldo and Peedee spoke up.

 

“Oh no…”, Martha murmured, starting to slow down her driving.

 

“Fantastic,” Lars blinked.

 

The second Martha had pulled over, the three boys were sprinting out of the car and in the direction that the casket had sped off, praying that it hadn't crashed into any oncoming cars.

 

“I see it!”, Peedee gasped as they ran as fast as their legs could carry them, then flinched when a truck swerved to avoid it and clipped it on the side, sending it tumbling into a ditch.

 

“Oh god!”, Ronaldo yelped,  rushing towards the ditch, groaning as he saw the casket spilled on its side, miraculously intact, but the lid wide open and the body nowhere to be seen.

 

“Wh- where's mom?”, Ronaldo looked around.

 

“In hell,” Peedee muttered, “Where's her body?”

 

“Found it!”, Lars called over a ways away, pointing at a blackberry bush that the body had been snagged in.

 

“Perfect! The perfect place to leave her!”, Ronaldo threw his hands up.

 

“Really?” Lars smiled.

 

“No!”, Ronaldo snapped, “I can't believe for once I'm the most sane!!...Aside from Peedee.”

 

After lots of avoiding brambles and pinpricks they managed to free the corpse from the bushes and hauled it over to the coffin, slapping it inside.

 

Peedee had taken notice of all the scratches accrued on the body from the blackberry thorns and gave a tight mirthless smile, “This was a closed-casket funeral right?”

 

“I don't know. And if it's not, we just act like it's a result of her death.”

 

“How did she die anyway?”

 

“Slipped on the soap in the shower.”

 

“I was hoping it was worms laying eggs in her body and eating her alive. But...hey close enough.”

 

They were surprised to see the flashing lights of a police car near Martha's car as they wheeled the casket back up.

 

The police officer hadn't even noticed the three as he cuffed Martha and was struggling to keep her in the back of the cop car while looking impressed.

 

“I can't believe all the aliases you've been going by, m’am!! Your record is like a photo album!!”

 

“No jail has ever kept me caged!”, she dared.

 

“Aw fuck, cops were onto her again,” Lars groaned and the three boys tiptoed around the cop car, and shoved the casket in the trunk.

 

Martha gave an understanding nod, and silently gestured for them to go, keeping the cop distracted as the three sped away.

 

“Now to search your car for more substances, and- HEY!”, the cop reacted, seeing the arrested woman's car rocketing off down the highway, way too fast to catch with Lars in the driver's seat. He'd have to use his inherited skills from his mother to take on her legacy as a true criminal mastermind.

 

Or just use the nifty little break in tips she had posted on the dashboard written on cute little sticky notes.

 

Best mom ever.


End file.
